Filipe Sousa – Developer and Team Adventurer

You know what’s cool about Endzone Software?

This guy ^^.

This handsome self-portrait is of Filipe Sousa, one of our amazing developers at Endzone.

Filipe primarily handles the bulk of support and maintenance tasks for our clients (and he’s fantastic at it). But don’t be fooled. Filipe certainly isn’t the boring guy that “support and maintenance” may imply.

What makes Filipe exciting?

Well he doesn't rock a beard quite as thick asAustin'sand he may not travel as much as Simone, but Filipe sure does know how to have fun in his time off.

When he’s not working to keep client sites running like a fine tuned machine, Filipe likes to get outside to play on his island home of Madeira, Portugal.

Filipe is a true adrenaline seeking adventurer. He is often found enjoying all kinds of intense and challenging activities–rock climbing, hiking mountains, canyoneering (the not so simple sport of rappelling down waterfalls…), wind surfing, and paragliding.

And that’s one reason why Filipe enjoys working at Endzone. The remote position provides the right amount of personal freedom he needs to enjoy his interests.

So while most people are stuck living a predictable daily routine, Filipe likes to get a weekday activity in there every now and then.

Since I don’t have to commute, that gives me more time to do all sorts of activities. Even if I have trouble finding someone to join me during the week, it’s a real advantage of this work model. I’m not obligated to work from 9 to 6… There’s a certain freedom for you to plan your workday, however you are going to work, what time you are going to work.

Asked about communication, Filipe admits there are positives and negatives when working remotely.

Here's Filipe in full living colour

You can miss the friendships that you make in a traditional workplace. But on the flip side, sometimes you may have that guy that you don’t like or don’t enjoy working with that much (asSimonepointed out). A remote position certainly takes some burdens out of your daily job!

More seriously, one thing about communicating as a remote team is we are forced to focus on the essentials and leave the chit chat for another time. This leads to communicating in a more professional way as opposed to the casual stuff (talking about the weather), which Filipe greatly appreciates.

But don’t think Filipe doesn’t like other people! His remote position provides opportunities to work next to whoever he wants:

I work mostly at home. Sometimes I work at a coworking space… the sort of people and diversity of people that you can come across in a cowork space includes a bigger range of occupations with which you can talk to and discuss ideas at so many different levels.

Meeting interesting people outside of the company, working in an efficient and professional environment, and having the time to enjoy loads of extreme sports… those are benefits on Filipe's workplace checklist.

How about you? Your agency life may not allow you to cut out those undesirable work relationships, but I’m sure there are some great benefits. Please share them with a Tweet!